2024 POSTCARD FROM CANADA Saturday 12 October –Thursday 24 October

I was picked up at 6.30am on Saturday 12 October and driven to Terminal 2 at LHR for my Air Canada flight to Montreal. On arrival my friends Anne and Gill had just arrived ahead of me, so we queued up and checked in our luggage and then made our way to the Maple Leaf Lounge for some juice/coffee. At 8.45 we walked to our flight and took off at 9.35, just five minutes late. Not impressed with Air Canada – a lot of French spoken and I was told only pasta available for my meal, so I declined it. Hence I enjoyed nuts and bubbly for a lot of the journey and then some biscuits and cheese. We were met by a driver and a small car – how he got all luggage in is incredible – and the three of us were huddled together on the back seat! Our driver had a problem to find the hotel – there had been a bad fire nearby and a lot of the roads were closed. Eventually we got to the hotel but we did not have a particularly warm greeting. Only one room was ready for us! We had particularly asked for our rooms to be ready early but they took no notice of that and the receptionist was very unhelpful. Fortunately after a short while a lady came on duty so I had another ‘shot at the rabbit’ and we got two rooms so we went upstairs and made ourselves some coffee/tea etc. After which we went on an hour’s amble around Old Montreal. In the evening we had drinks in the bar on the roof to get some good views and then dined in the bar on the ground floor. On Sunday we walked into the Old Town and had a morning tour which was very average – too much talking that was being drowned out by musicians wherever we went. After a brief stop for some lunch we had a better guide in the afternoon and a good tour of another part of Montreal. In the evening we dined at a Gaspar restaurant in Old Montreal. On Monday we struggled with problems at the hotel. They were taking money off our credit cards without our permission and also our car to the airport on Tuesday was being difficult about the numbers in the car [3 + luggage – they were insisting only one person!]. Once sorted we went for a walk in the pouring rain. Visited Notre-Dame-de-Consecours – as well as visit the church we climbed to the tower at the top and had some good views. Still in the rain we walked around and found a pub [Brewsky] for some lunch before making our way back to the hotel – arriving back rather wet! In the evening we took ourselves [by taxi to get there ‘cos of the pouring rain!] to Sabrosa, a Mexican restaurant, for dinner, and then walked back to the hotel as thankfully the rain had stopped! The following day, Tuesday, we set off around 10am for the airport and checked in for our Air Canada flight to Winnipeg. There was a 40 minute delay but otherwise an easy flight. We checked into our rooms at the Inn on the Forks in Winnipeg mid afternoon. We then did a short walk around the hotel area – I gave up after a short while having been before – but otherwise Anne and Gill had a good walk around the area. We dined in the hotel that evening. Mid morning on Wednesday we checked out of the Inn on the Forks hotel and took a bus ride to Winnipeg airport. Once checked in and on board it was a fairly painless flight. On arrival in Churchill we were met by two ladies, and then we all boarded two small buses and were driven to the Lazy Bear Lodge in Churchill. After checking in and having a late lunch we got back on board the same bus and were driven on a cultural trip around Churchill. After that it was back to the hotel for some relaxation and dinner. On Thursday we spent a lot of the day in the Crawler – a large type of caravan – touring the Tundra looking for polar bears, and we were lucky enough to find three, in spite of no snow. We had lunch on board and then returned to the lodge for an early dinner and to prepare for our evening excursion – dog mushing! Sledging behind a group of dogs! It was freezing cold, but I have known colder! Friday we were back in the crawler to search out polars! It was a very quiet day on board but we did eventually see two polar bears. In the evening Anne and Gill went search of the Northern Lights but I retired to my room to catch up on some sleep. On Saturday we did a short cultural tour of Churchill and after an early lunch we left for the airport and flew down to Winnipeg. We spent the evening at the Winnipeg Grand Airport Hotel. Gill left us early on Sunday to fly to Toronto to meet a girlfriend. After breakfast Anne and I flew from Winnipeg to Calgary where we were met by a very efficient car service and driven to The Westin in Calgary. We had a quiet afternoon in our rooms and then took ourselves out for a lovely meal at Barbarella in the evening. On Monday Anne and I did a day trip to Banff and Lake Louise. Sadly there was a lot of low cloud so the Rockies were not visible but it did snow a lot so we had some good views of snowy trees, but we had a rather a long journey back to Calgary thanks to the wintery weather. On Tuesday we had a walking tour of Calgary in the morning which was excellent after which we took ourselves to the top of the CNN Tower and thankfully Anne had a good view of the sunny Rockies, albeit from a distance. I spent the afternoon catching up with myself with photos etc. Wednesday was a day for packing up and getting out of our rooms – and then off to the airport for the flight home which left on time and arrived in London on time.